How do you explain the concept of foreshadowing?

So, it’s like this thing that happens before this other thing happens to let readers know that the other thing is going to happen. Tough, isn’t it? But for all that it can be a bit difficult to succinctly explain, foreshadowing is really a simple concept. We’re providing our readers with a hint of what’s to come in order to prepare them for the type of story they will be reading.

Sounds easy, right? But how do you decide what events need to be foreshadowed? And, further, how do you decide when to foreshadow? Unless you have the magic ingredient close to hand, you may find it difficult to find specific answers to either of these questions. But, lucky for us, we do have that magic ingredient, and it is story structure.

Once we understand the basic elements of structure (which I talk about in-depth in my book Structuring Your Novel: Essential Keys for Writing an Outstanding Story), we can see how they fit together to create a solid story that works. Using that understanding, we can then further break down the smaller components of the craft—such as foreshadowing—and gain some specific info on how to put them into play.

What does structure tell us about what to foreshadow?

We use foreshadowing because it allows us to guide our readers’ expectations and prepare them (if only subconsciously) for big events down the road. So we already have part of our answer right there: we need to foreshadow big events.

But how do you know which events will be the big ones? Sometimes the answer to this question is a no-brainer. The big events are the ones we imagined right off when we got the idea for this story; they’re the ones we’ve been waiting all the way through the book to write. But sometimes—and especially if you’re not keen on outlining—you may not realize which events will end up being the big ones.

An understanding of structure helps us identify the major turning points in the story:

The First Major Plot Point takes place around the 25% mark, signifies a major disruption in your character’s “normal world” up to now, and forces him into a phase of reaction.

The Midpoint takes place around the 50% mark and rocks your character’s world again, but this time forces him to start taking charge and taking action.

The Third Major Plot Point takes place around the 75% mark, signifies yet another disruption, this time distinguished as your character’s low point in the story, before he changes his mindset and enters the final stage in his character arc.

The Climactic Moment takes place near the end of your story and is the moment in which your character finally does what needs to be done to reach his story goal and gain the thing he needs.

Every one of these points in your story will shake things up for both your characters and your readers. As such, you’ll want to make sure you’ve properly foreshadowed them by planting clues (or, at the very least, a corresponding tonality) early on.

What does story structure tell us about when to foreshadow?

Aside from the obvious fact that you have to plant your foreshadowing before you can pay it off, can we dig up any more specific guidance?

If you guessed the answer to that is, “Yes,” then you’re absolutely right. Foreshadowing comes in what I like to think of as two varieties: heavy and light.

Heavy foreshadowing plants a solid clue of what’s to come later on. This kind of foreshadowing needs to happen early in the book. Your First Major Plot Point needs to be foreshadowed in your first chapter. Optimally, your Climax will also get a dab of foreshadowing early on. All the other major plot points need to be foreshadowed in the first half of the book—and preferably the first quarter.

The first quarter of your story is your setup. This is where you’ll be introducing characters, settings, and stakes. It’s also going to be Foreshadowing City. You don’t want to give away any plot secrets, but you do want to give readers a sense of what’s coming. Dinosaurs? Time travel? A dark tragedy? A light comedy? Bring readers up to speed as soon as possible.

Light foreshadowing, on the other hand, happens just before the payoff arrives and is where you remind readers of the previous heavy foreshadowing. This foreshadowing will almost always be applied with a much lighter touch. A little tension or foreboding or a glimpse of a symbolic motif may be all you need to poke your readers wide awake and warn them that the something big they’ve been waiting for is about to happen.

Whether you plan your foreshadowing ahead of time, allow it to emerge organically as you write, or return to reinforce it during revisions, you’ll find that a solid understanding of story structure will help you plan it to its full advantage.

Do you use story structure techniques in your writing? Please do leave a comment or question below.

Comments

I do follow basic story structure, even though I don’t outline in detail. I find it helps to know, even as I do my first draft, what scenes are likely to make the final cut and what scenes I’ll likely drop, and so therefore should either skip or at least not get too attached to.
I do like your point about foreshadowing the FPP in the first Chapter… That has just about sured up my plan to restructure my opening to my WIP – if it won’t create a case of too much happening at once. Otherwise, I’ll think up something else!
Keeping a general story structure in mind is very helpful, though I do consider the percentages fairly flexible in practice!

You’re right about the percentage placements of the plot points being very flexible in practice – much more so in a book than in a movie (in which we can time them almost down to the minute). Since books are much larger than movies, and because they build their scenes in lengthy segments, they have the ability to wiggle around spot-on timing. Still, it’s important to keep the basic timing in mind when writing.

The great thing about story telling, and especially structure, is that it’s tremendously instinctive. You’re probably doing very well with your foreshadowing, based simply on your intuition. The value of consciously understanding techniques such as this is that we can not only purposefully activate them, we can also troubleshoot with much more ease.

Same here I’m still 90% writing by the seat of my pats with this kind of stuff. Though, with a particularly tricky chapter, I found I did need to kind of write out what I wanted to happen. So far that’s been the only one.

Perhaps a few examples of your own foreshadowing that you’ve done in a finished book would be enough to clue us in?

I do keep in mind when writing the chapters about the plot, even with the subplots I always make sure yo slowly easy the direction back to the main plot. Not sure if I’m foreshadowing or not though.

Unrelated question, do any of you have any online writing groups that you think are realy good? If possible I’d like to join one that is strictly for Americans as grammar is different in other parts of the world. I tire of being told that some of my grammar is wrong when I’m sure it isn’t.

Interesting article, but I must humbly and respectfully disagree. I’m okay with noticing foreshadowing as part of analyzing a story but I think consciously putting it into a story is a little too much work. It should be present in hindsight as part of an organic outgrowth of characters and events.

If you foreshadow too much, you’re diluting the potency of surprise. I do however, realize my opins here are abstract and in the abstract you can argue forever. If the specifics work, go for it.

As with all approaches to fiction, a proper presentation of foreshadowing has to be about balance. Subtlety will always carry the day. If purposefully pursuing foreshadowing creates too heavy handed a result in the book, then we know something is wrong. The best foreshadowing will always be that which the reader doesn’t even notice until it’s fulfilled later.

I tend to not worry overly about foreshadowing until I am doing final revisions (my writing method has me revising throughout, but until the late few the focus is entirely on structure). I don’t worry to much about techincalities of structure – just, does the tension build, does each scene work and build into the next scene, the nitty gritty of structure. Often I find the foreshadowing adds itself during the writing process, and the revisions are more about tweaking it and making sure that it works without being to in-your-face.

One thing I do pay a lot of attention to per story structure is the hook. I always ask my beta readers when the story got their attention and when it really grabbed them. If they aren’t getting grabbed, or aren’t getting grabbed until a couple dozen pages in, I know I have some work to do.

It’s hard to pick out one part of structure that is more important than another, but it’s tempting not to single out the hook. If we fail there, then readers will never stick around long enough to see how wonderfully we’ve executed the rest of the story.

I personally find foreshadowing is probably one of the biggest things I struggle with. I know I need to do it, and I hope it comes out organically after my 2nd or 3rd draft (since I’m still primarily a pantser), but certain things I have to consciously think, “How am I to foreshadow THAT?” The scene I’m working on right now is a case in-point. It came up semi-organically in my rough draft, had no clue it would be happening when I started on Page 1 months ago, but it’s pretty major, and needs to be foreshadowed… though I have no clue how to do it at this point in the game!

Sometimes foreshadowing is just a matter of tone. We’ve all read books or watched movies in which we just *knew* something bad was going to happen. Sometimes our clairvoyance was due to blatant foreshadowing. But often, we were just getting a bad feeling because of the general tone of the story. So start with tone, see if that’s enough, then work your way up to more obvious clues if you still feel readers won’t be properly prepared.

Thanks for the post. I think this is a very sensible approach and one I have not used before. I am going to build it into my next writing project. I do think it relies a little on having a fairly good idea of where your story is heading, but I usually like to write without any preconceived ideas as to the ending etc. That said, I think this approach will make me be a little more disciplined in my writing, something I have been striving for for years. Nice post.

There are good things to be said for pre-planning and bad things. Personally, I find extensive prep, via outlines, extremely helpful in creating a seamless and cohesive first draft. Makes that first draft much easier to write too! But for writers who prefer *not* to figure out their endings ahead of time, they can always foreshadow in reverse: once they do know their ending, all they have to do is go back and insert the foreshadowing into earlier scenes. The result often isn’t as organic, but good editing can fix a plethora of such problems.

A very good suggestion, K.M. I can see the benefit in foreshadowing in reverse. The more I think about it, the more I am inclined to think foreshadowing is the thing that makes for a good page-turner. I can even ‘see’ it being done in best sellers as I have often wondered how writing greats manage to build suspense and create that magic that makes their books what they are. Thanks for bringing this technique to my attention.

Foreshadowing often seems like a nebulous technique for the very reason you mentioned: when it’s done right, it’s difficult to notice. Foreshadowing really just comes down to two parts of a whole – plant and payoff. We plant the clue, then we pay it off when it comes full circle into a reveal.

I love foreshadowing, but am not much of a planner. Like others, I like it to happen subconsciously but I think structure is essential for later revisions, when you’re constantly asking yourself is this working?

Although I prefer and recommend the conscious preparation approach, there’s absolutely no reason writers can’t rely on instinct for the foreshadowing in the first draft – and then go back and strengthen it when editing. The important thing in any writing technique is figuring out what approach works for *you*. If someone recommends something that you feel would stifle your creativity, by all means ignore it.

I had always let foreshadowing come organically (and still may while writing my first draft) but it’s definitely something I want to look for as I edit. I’m a big plotter and will usually do a detailed outline before I write the book, but then allow for things to change as I write, which is where that “organic” happens. Now I’ve got something else in my list to make my book better. Thanks!

Writing is very much a balance between conscious and subconscious. We never want to quell or get in the way of that organic flow of inspiration. But we want to be aware enough of what we’re doing that we can consciously guide that inspiration to its strongest and best end.

I did quite a bit of foreshadowing throughout my 1st historical suspense, however I think somewhere along the way I lost the ability to add large doses of the unexpected in my story. Do you have tips on how to use lots of foreshadowing in a story and somehow still have quite a few elements of surprise as you write? Great BTW…thanks!

Here’s a truth: if you foreshadow something well, you’re always going to have perceptive readers who will figure out what’s going on. But here’s another truth: if you’re worried about readers figuring out plot twists, then the best thing you can do is tone down the foreshadowing. I wouldn’t necessarily delete it, but, as I mentioned in a previous comment, I would focus more on tone than on any blatant clue.

Some very interesting points here, even for those of us who right non-fiction. I’ve used it, perhaps unconsciously, even in research reports. It seems to me that foreshadow is actually a way of imitating real life–we very often do know what’s coming in life. The problem is using it subtly enough that it does mimic real life, and organically enough that it seems to grow from the substrate of the story.

This is an issue for me at the moment, as I’m writing a memoir comprised largely of journal entries. The journal pieces are fascinating, but artless, tactless, and range all over the temporal and geographical map. It can be very hard to structure such a book into “a story” when there’s no real plot. I have to selectively arrange the different pieces in such a way that the reader is aware of those Plot Points that you pointed out, even though the person writing the journal had, at least at the time, no clue that he was part of a story at all!

It’s very interesting (if perhaps not too surprising) how much of story technique is reflected back to us in real life. For all that our lives are a rambling, seemingly plotless narrative, we can definitely sit back and identify the “plot points” that are lending structure to certain events.

Foreshadowing in non-fiction (reports and essays especially) is pretty standard. After stating an hypothesis, it’s important to orientate your reader to the rest of the piece by saying “X, Y and Z must all be discussed in order to fully understand [restate hypothesis]”. When I take my students from formal writing to creative writing, I try and use planning and structure to create a bridge so students who are stronger at one style over another can see the links.

And I think that with memoir, Yael, that there is a plot. The plot is your life! If the journals really are disconnected, then perhaps they’re connected thematically and still have a thread running through them? Good luck with your writing.

I think it depends on the complexity of the story. If you’re doing layers upon layers of story/plot with a mind to not only drive the narrative, but leave little easter eggs for those readers that enjoyed it enough to re-read your work, foreshadowing and half-hidden clues are king.

I started with a common genre trope and had an inspiration to come at it from a currently unconventional angle. It was a great upending of a mechanic, but I needed to figure out why those involved, both protag and antag, were doing what they were doing. So, I wrote the end first, developed the antag’s backstory, then sat down and belted out the narrative. Along the way, I found that I could role little nuggets in, some extremely subtle, a couple of frying pans to the face, that a reader will go back and go A-HA!

Toward that end, taking a cue from M Night Shamalasomethingorother’s “Six Sense”, I started a folder called “red doorknobs” in which all the ideas for easter eggs went. It’s proven a great tool for keeping those little nuggets straight while making sure I don’t overdo it or duplicate effort.

Although I rarely write my first drafts out of order, I’ll often “reverse outline” in the prep stages. Sometimes, if we’re going to create a story that’ll get us to our projected ending in a sensible and economic fashion, we can save ourselves a lot of work and trouble by building the story backwards.

Hi K.M.
Great post, thanks
I am entirely in the pantsing camp, so posts like this scare me a little 🙂
The more I edit, the more aware I am becoming of what I do naturally, as a pantser, and those things I need to develop in the edit. The struggle I have with your structure description is that I don’t have one main protagonist in the series I am currently working on, but a number of them. Trying to follow the classic ‘turning points’ structure for all of them results in a messy, over-convoluted novel, or one that is emotionally superficial so I’m trying to get that straight before I pick up foreshadowing and those more subtle things. Having said that, I do think I foreshadow, only not perhaps that lightly. It’s all heavy at the moment!
Thanks again, great post, and nice to get a sense of all the things I have yet to learn 🙂
Mike

Hah! 😀 No need to be scared. Pantsers can create stories that are just as strongly structured as plotters. They just do it in reverse. It’s important to create the writing process that best encourages your creativity. If outlining kills that for you, then by no means should you feel pressured into it.

As for multiple narrators/storylines, they can certainly make structuring more complicated, due simply to the sheer number of things you have to end up juggling. But this type of story still can (and should) adhere to proper structure. I wrote a post on dual timelines, awhile back, which, although it doesn’t directly address structure as such, you still may find helpful.

Great tips on light and heavy foreshadowing. When explaining foreshadowing, I always like to use James Bond as an example. Quincy gives Bond a bunch of crazy tools or weapons to use at the beginning of every story. Later, when Bond finds himself in a life or death situation, he uses one of those tools to set himself free. This way, the audience never says, “Oh, so you just happen to have a miniature blow torch on you to cut your chains loose while you sink to the bottom of the ocean in the trunk of a car.” Quincy had given him a mini blowtorch at the beginning of the movie.

Hello K.M.,
Thank you for the write-up,
I am actually working on a story myself, but I also instinctively use foreshadowing. Sometimes it is better to have some structure, especially if the story is complex.

Human beings have an instinctive sense of story structure. Most of us are more or less properly structuring our stories even before we even know what structure *is*. If we’re then able to build up that instinct with a conscious understanding of the principles of structure, we can take our books to a whole new level.

Ha! Found another terminology difference. In Ten Ways to Fake a Professional Edit, everyone was using the term ‘Style Sheet’ as the place to keep names, facts and story points. We use the term ‘Bone Pile’ for the same thing. Now I see ‘Foreshadowing’. I started writing by writing screen and teleplays; foreshadowing is called ‘Finger Posting’. Means the same thing. In our writing workshops (both screen and novel) I have a list of 35 things to pay attention to. Number 14 is: FINGER POSTING – Pointing to something which is going to happen in the future. You must follow through with an OBLIGATORY SCENE.
As an organic (pantser) writer, I really don’t think about structure consciously…just focus on the story. The Finger Posts seem to come out of the blue and sometimes they can be quite obtuse. One of those can happen when the reader gets to the twist; they go back to chapter two where they think they vaguely remember something and have an ‘Ah hah!’ moment. One of our novels, we created a character who was the son of one of our main leads, but he didn’t know it, nor did the reader. There is a scene in a hot tub with a potential love interest and he mentions that he’s adopted. Very short, very quick, very subtle. The very last page of the novel (the big twist moment) he and the reader find out who he really is. (The Obligatory Scene) Son of a gun…didn’t see that coming.)

I found this very interesting, especially with regards to organic/natural use of foreshadowing compared to actually manufacturing it and placing it where needed with intention. What you said about planting clues that build up to one of the key plot points I love; also playing with the levels of subtelty surrounding each clue is my favourite part of writing. I tend to stick to short stories, mainly because writing a novel around my degree and work is rather time consuming, and i find writing a commentary to my pieces often helps me to see exactly what i need to change; in explaining it to someone else I can see incoherence and lack of foreshadowing and rebuild around it.

The idea of explaining or writing an explanation about the story’s strengths and weaknesses is a fabulous way to consciously “own” it. I recommend that writers write a “perfect review” and a “bad review” of each of their stories, to help them more objectively see the areas that need work.

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